Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Recently in Pennsylvania, a university professor was suspended for venting her workplace frustration on her Facebook page. On January 21, she posted a comment that read, "Does anyone know where I can find a very discrete hitman? Yes, it's been that kind of day..." The second comment, posted one month later, read, “Had a good day today, DIDN'T want to kill even one student :-). Now Friday was a different story." This professor only recently started her Facebook account, has 32 "friends" comprised of friends, relatives and colleagues. She has no students among her Facebook friends. She was unsure how her messages wound up at ESU's provost's office. After a 10 minute meeting with the Dean, she was escorted off campus by security.

“The Facebook incident also points out how our off-hand musings cannot be considered private in the age of social networking”, said Montana Miller, an assistant professor of popular culture at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, who is also a Facebook Expert. (She is NOT the professor suspended.)

I don't teach so I can't adequately opine whether students are or are not irritating enough to make you drink, pull your hair out, or as this professor wrote, ponder worse ideas. I do think if you are going to write notes on your FB account, perhaps it is unwise to pen a sentence which includes both of the words students and kill. However, the more interesting statement in this article is she was unsure how her messages wound up at ESU's provost's office because no students are her "friends" on her account.

Hmmm, let me call Colombo. And while I am waiting for him, I guess that one of your 32 "friends" who are also some of your colleages thought it perhaps unwise to pen sentences that include both the word students and kill.

PS: How in the world did Professor Miller become an expert in Facebook? If you are an expert, Professor, please help us all by telling us how to encourage certain people from the constant status updates like “I sure like bologna” and "I left my heart in Farmville."

In the ever-growing word of social media, is the expectation of privacy very valid? Facebook has an important word in the name: BOOK. As in, it is basically an open one and if you write shiznit about your school, your students, your employer, your boyfriend, or your Father’s employer, someone will use their SnagIt program and share it with the world. Otherwise, it might be called Face-SuperSafePlacetoAirAllYourSecrets. Someone should have told Sarah Henderson this news. But, she was sticking up for her Dad, right?

But airing secrets on Facebook isn't as rare as it should be. I ran into an old neighbor recently. He is a newleywed and a salty one at that. A small tiff with his new bride escalated into an ugly brew-ha-ha when he read this on FB:

(His wife) Mrs. B: Day is bad. My husband is a total jerk.
His response: And, along with our entire families, one of your friends on FB who can read your status updates.

YIKES.

And even though you know Facebook is not called “Private Diary” for a reason, here are some other interesting examples from funny to fumbles of people who learned that ex post facto.

128 comments:

I'm sitting here cleaning up the mess I made spitting coffee out of my nose! But so worth it. Most of the people in our clinic have FB accounts, and I think they forget that in their race to have the most "friends" I can see all of their status updates. Let's just say it can make things interesting at review time :). Kathy

Forgot to add my actual comment. LOL. I can't read anything else after "a Facebook Expert"... Like you it piqued my interest. At least he's not a Facebook guru or ninja 'cause I'd totally throw up. Lots of Facebook faux pax to be found on the internet. My favorite was the girl with the status update "Is in the shower" and within an hour she got 43 likes. LOL. I do think the school is overreacting. Next, we are going to hear moms being visited by DCFS for venting about their children on their blogs? Ooops. I'd better watch what I write from now on... ;-)

I was a college professor for a while. I never wanted to hire a hitman or kill anybody, but the pulling out of my own hair thing happened on a pretty regular basis. The level of entitlement among students today is outlandish.

For my new menial job I needed to sign a disclaimer about how and if anything work related could be mentioned on any type of social media. I've tried very hard to be careful - but when work becomes a big part of your life (and you live a nice sized chunk of your life online) it becomes very difficult. I definitely self censor a little more than I used to.

I think that it is extremely unfair, not to say stupid, of the University to suspend the woman.

For a start, from what I know of those institutions these days, I cannot imagine any day passing when any normal professor doesn't want to kill at least three or four students and half her/his work colleagues - in fact, her feelings sound pretty restrained to me, particularly since she didn't actually do it!

Are they that stupid and unworldly they can't spot a little dark humour when it bites them in the ass.

I rather think that one of the most valuable functions of social networking sites as well as blogs is the facility they provide for people to vent - thus avoiding the desire to kill become something more concrete.

Of course, I still love and adore you, JennyMac and could never wish you harm, but JohnnyMac? Well now... LOL, LOL, LOL (that's a joke by the way - duh! - for the benefit of humourless authorities from Pennsylvania).

Seriously, every time someone utters or writes "Facebook", I think "WHY?!"

I don't understand the phenomenon. I had plenty of high school the four years I was there; I don't need to relive the experience.

I joined once for less than 15 minutes at the prodding of my siblings. I thought it was creep that I had just joined and was barraged with 'friend requests', as though people were lurking and waiting for new arrivals. EWWW!

Recently, I had my sister tour me around FB for an hour and I still thought "WHY?" and then "WTF?!"

Can you or anyone else explain it's popularity to me? I wish someone would post about it. Really. And I mean someone intelligent. (Hint, hint.)

I remember reading a story last year about a young professional who was in the application process for a job with a Fortune 500. She posted several Tweets about how this job was just a fall-back one, that the long communte would make her an unproductive employee, and she hoped to land another position closer to home. She learned that: HR reps read Twitter as well.

Great post - while I do think the school overreacted to the fb posts, it does seem a little dim to write things (even in jest) about killing your students. Especially since her colleagues were her "friends" (aka her competition in academia). It's always a safe bet just to post things that are silly or funny, but won't get you fired (good rule of thumb anywhere). This post was hilarious!!

I guess it just depends on your maturity level. I'm on FB. It allows me to keep up with friends/acquaintances and people in the glass art world that I wouldn't ordinarily correspond with but now have a connection to. I'm selective about who I add as 'friend'. I realize that friends of my friends can read my comments to the mutual friend's post but I don't write anything I wouldn't say out loud. That's where the maturity level comes in.

I'm with you. And I would like to add that I make good use of the options to include and exclude individuals/groups on specific postings and status updates. The ability to keep your personal thoughts relatively personal is there -- more people would use it.

My FB account is set up so no one other than one of my friends can see what I have on there but I also use enough discretion and common sense not to put my every thought and move on there. I LOVE Lamebook. It really makes you ponder the question "How come common sense really isn't?" Great post!

Ooohhh Facebook...there's so much to say. I enjoy it for reconnecting with people, but some of the things friends post creep me out. Airing out their dirty laundry about their divorce on a status? Really? Telling me how much your cervix is dilated? Disgusting. Not appropriate, not even interesting. And Farmville should be illegal.

I delight on getting on Facebook and seeing some of the stupid things that people who put me down in high school say! (And they usually say it with misspelled words and hideous grammar.) Guess they shouldn't have made fun of the egghead in high school!

I don't do FB but my wife opened up an account after her sis said she should check out our kids pages. When the wife approached them about it they got all upset because she was invading their privacy. Whaaa?????? You gotta have FB Brain to think only your friends read it. Worse, my wife left me for Farmville.

Sadly, FB had become the place for me to post pics of my daughter and my home improvement projects. All due to the diversity of my family. Can't afford to offend one of them. Dammit.Too bad it makes me look really lame.

You hear stories like this more and more often--people getting "caught" saying something on Facebook or Twitter and getting in trouble for it. It's amazing to me that people--especially a college professor--aren't catching on that they should watch what they say.

I can totally understand why this professor said the things she did--some of my fellow college students are ignorant, douchey, entitlement whores--but I think she should've known better than to say it on Facebook.

I'm officially taking a FB break. About a month ago, I just decided that it wasn't fun anymore. The conservatives that I grew up with and the liberals that I am friends with now just weren't playing nice in my Facebook sandbox. And stupidity makes me sad, so I walked away for awhile.

I’m not a teacher either or a Mensa member, but I do watch the news. You don’t have to add two and two together to know a few words that should never be used in a school or business environment. By the way, I enjoyed the Facebook samples.

Loved this post! As I teach 6th through 8th grade computers, this obviously comes up when I teach about cyber bullying and social networking. Nothing better than on a Sunday afternoon creeping through Facebook pictures to find photos of high school kids at college parties that weekend. How do you explain that one to the principal on Monday?

One, it's FACEBOOK and for 99.9% of the time, filled with inane people saying silly harmless things you'd say to friends in every day life and to fire someone over some OBVIOUSLY silly comment that she is joking about is ridiculous, particularly when they know that person.

Secondly, to be dumb enough to keep your FB page public and say stuff like that in this day in age is equally ludicrous. I'm all for the posting personal comments about your day like that, but for god's sake that's what the private functions are for and if you don't use them and then wonder why people can google your name and find them, you're an idiot.

So really, however you look at it, it's preposterous. Still, people take these things way, way too seriously too.

This is why I don't do any social networking sites at all. Well, unless you count this one. :)

There are days when I feel terribly old and out of it. And then there are days when I follow those feelings up with, "What? That's a BAD thing??"

I'm nearly 46. That means I came of age back in Bedrock with Fred and Wilma, before cell phones, home computers, texting, the internet, and for a while, microwave ovens.

"Social networking" meant everyone standing in the same room, having the same conversation. You had no delusions as to who heard what you said, and no expectation of deniability when you were called on it. "Social" still meant "knowing how to relate to others of your species".

My kids (and my oldest is 22) live in a world where most of their so-called socializing happens inside their own heads. We have coming into adulthood an entire generation who has grown up honestly believing that what they think and feel at this very moment is all that matters, and that there should never be consequences for putting those thoughts and feelings out there.

And now, they're losing jobs, failing at relationships, and neglecting any responsibility that doesn't allow for their world view, namely "I'm the center of the only universe that counts."

A college professor once told me that just because you can write a book does not mean it should be published... with all that is available now, getting published is not as big a deal as it once was... And everyone can do it... Even those that don't deserve to be published

I'm on the fence about FB. I have seen it suck people in to things like Farmville and they are never seen again. I remember one of my blog pals who I loved reading her blog that got on FB and she quit her blog to manage her farm.

I basically stop and really think about what I'm going to say on FB. It's the same with blogging. If I say it, apparently, I want others to read it so I take it into my own hands.

There are some misunderstandings here. First, I did not actually say the quote you attribute to me; the writer of the news story (http://tinyurl.com/yba82tw) did. That reporter referred to me as a Facebook expert; some might consider me an expert because I have been studying the phenomenon since it appeared in 2004, documenting its evolution and speaking on the topic at national and international conferences. My Ph.D. is in folklore and anthropology of education. And I am NOT the professor who was suspended, as "Salt" implies. Also, I'm a woman. The examples you present here are from Lamebook.com; you might want to cite that. Thanks for raising awareness about this issue, anyway. Sincerely, Montana Miller (Department of Popular Culture, Bowling Green State University)

Obviously I am on FB, but I try to be careful about what I post. That being said, it recently occurred to me that comments I leave on other people's blogs may not be as innocent/anonymous as I once thought. I'm sure you'd have to be akin to Sherlock Holmes to find the stuff, but...still....it's scary. I can't think about it too much or I'll just have to shut the whole blogging thing down.

Those FB posts were HILARIOUS...and also the reason why I ignore all friend requests from people I work with. Meanwhile...I AM still struggling with my feelings about the blogosphere and how I express myself on it.

Wow. I'm pretty sure that comment by Sarah Henderson was fueled by alcohol. Liquid courage...I have learned the hard way to be very careful of status updates. I made the mistake of venting my pain on the death of a family member...and not everyone in my family had found out yet. I still have guilt about that, even though my family has forgiven me.Now, if I want a pure form of uncensored venting, I reach for the old paper journal and pencil.

Professor Montana: Thank you so much for visiting and your willingness to share clarification. I knew you were a woman and I think most people realized you were not the professor suspended. The examples I posted are not from Lamebook but rather came from a variety of sources like oddee, top ten, and emails people have shared. I have first heard of Lamebook.com today.

I appreciate your feedback and wanted to email you back but your email is not linked. Best, JennyMac

Those are some very, um, interesting status updates. I've seen some people "arguing" on there recently. I especially love when someone is ranting about something and uses acronym after acronym and/or has horrible grammar. I hardly ever type a status update, and when I do it's NEVER to complain about anybody other than POSSIBLY my kids. Or the weather.

haha GREAT post! I have always said that...hello... it's on the internet..people can read it!!!

I used to work for my parent's company and I still have some old co-workers as friends on facebook. One of them decided to bash my parents one day and talk about how stupid they are as employers...hello...I read it all and forwarded it to my parents. Some people are just dumb.

I'm not on FB myself. I tried it once to look for a long lost pal, but after that I just failed to see the attraction of the whole thing. But these examples are hilarious, though! Might have to look into that lamebook for a few more laughs. Maybe I'll become addicted to that instead? ;)

The professor that was sacked, it seems a very harsh reaction, but then again I can understand her employer's view. What she did was very unprofessional. Being a student, I wouldn't like to read about my professor wanting to kill me, even if just a joke. If I had said or done something stupid, I'd much rather the lecturer spoke to me about it. I'd feel very uncomfortable going to that professor's class and asking questions if I knew I'd risk being made the laughing stock among other students and university employees.

First off, I’m an alum of Bowling Green State University (Go Falcons!), where your Facebook Expert comes from. Bowling Green was one of the first schools that featured a Pop Culture Dept. (Pioneered by Dr. Ray Browne, who just recently passed away.) So the study of social media would be right up their alley… if there is to be such a thing as a “Facebook Expert”, it’s no surprise that she came from Bowling Green.

I have a relative who is totally into facebook....yet she doesn't think or realize that it is open to the public. It's very entertaining to read as she posts everything about her soap opera life, and often includes people's phone numbers and email addresses. She uses FB to keep in touch with her daughter rather than use the phone, so there are some very personal posts on there. Sadly, it's hilarious! Oy.

I love any media that makes it easier for individuals to make asses of themselves, show their complete ignorance, or just make great foot-in-mouth comments that are in print for the world to review! Long live Facebook!

An acquaintance from high school posted her husband's death, and (an overview of) his autopsy on facebook. My husband was like, "well, I guess you just want people to know, so they don't ask questions." I still found it curious. I mean, just so personal.

Man, I am having problems with my computer tonight. I left this huge comment...then my computer went nuts-o on me, and I see it didn't go through.....oh dangSo what did I say....Oh yeah, something Like, I am not a fan of facebook, even though it was how my hubby and I reconnected.Kinds silly reallyI have seen people have fights on facebookbe cattysilly comments like "I am going to clean up the dog poop now"

and I don't even begin to UNDERSTAND twitter. guess it all ages me eh

and I have worked as a teachers aide in a middle school....oh wow, stressful indeed. some students are so Disrespectful.So it is unfortunate that she lost her job by expressing her frustrations.

unreal. it is called common sense people! in light of the world we live in , including that psycho professor who recently gunned down her colleagues bc she didn't make tenure, it is not an overreaction to have that prof. escorted off campus by security ..... she should not be allowed to teach in my opinion......there are ways to express annoyance or frustration, which no doubt do occur, other than talking about guns, death and so forth.

I'm kind of with Jules on this one. I think (as a teacher) not everything we say is INTENDED as that. I mean, teachers get frustrated and vent. It probably shouldn't use the word "kill" or "hitman" but I think a warning should have been in order for this professor. I don't think she should have been fired.

JennyMac, my pleasure! And Google will help you find my faculty web page at BGSU, if you want to get in touch more directly.I maintain the Department of Popular Culture's Twitter page, if you're interested in further links...http://twitter.com/PopCultureBGSU

My FB and my blog are written as if anyone can see them. If it's something that I think can get me, or anyone else in trouble, it doesn't get posted because stuff like that is not for public consumption. Does that mean I don't write funny stories about my patients? Absolutely not. But I also balance the funny story of the woman whose daughter sprayed bidet water all over her face to my compassion for the guy who had lost his mind due to a stroke. And rarely, if ever bringing up the stories of situations that make me mad...always keeping name, age and sometimes even gender very anonymous, so as not to reveal any privacy.

When I was working as a letter carrier, no one kept us to high standards, and those who might have were properly wary. Now that I'm retired, I can probably get away with writing anything I want. But my private life is just between me and the burros.

my friend just gradutated to become a teacher and in their grad they told her class about the dangers of all this social media so now we have to be careful about everything we say. i dont really agree with it but i get where the higher powers are coming from.

So funny. I have seen some of those before and it still makes me laugh at how stupid people can be at times.Always think of what you are writing before you hit send - nothing is private on the internet.

I must confess I am addicted to Face Book. But I realize that with all my friends someone is going to be offended if I post anything that hits too close to home.

I am old enough to realize that face book is a PUBLIC forum. Didn't have to go to college to figure that out either.

Unfortunately, I am addicted to some of the games and do have a plethora of posts on my pg about them.

To have someone view my pg before deciding to hire/fire/promote me, is a little much. What if they don't agree with my religion/political/fashion opinions? Since these factions would most likely not play a role in my work what difference does it make to my employer?

As I read your post, comments left and other similar items, it just shows us that we are in a whole new world. Everyone is trying to figure out how it works and how to respond to things. On the one hand, there are people at schools who didn't respond and people died. On the other hand it seems that there are people who over respond. And who is to know where the line is. Did any suspect that professor a few months ago to come in and kill colleagues?

My hubby made the mistake of adding old high school friends as well as current work colleagues. One of his old 'friends' thought it would be funny to post a pic of him when he was 15 mooning a group of his friends. Yep, now his bare arse and part of his left ball are on FB for everyone to see. Nice, right?